I Cannot Live Without Books

Jefferson wrote this to John Adams in a letter dated June 10, 1815, near the end of both men's lives during their celebrated late-life correspondence. He had recently been forced to sell his personal library — over six thousand volumes — to the Library of Congress in 1815 to pay debts, replacing the Congressional Library that British forces had burned in 1814. The statement carries additional poignancy: having just parted with his great collection, Jefferson was already planning to rebuild it.